


Assignment Ills

by emetoandotherthings



Category: Original Work
Genre: Blood, Coughing, Emetophilia, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mention of blood, Nosebleed, Sickfic, Vomiting, cold/flu, emeto, emeto fiction, puke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:07:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22135291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emetoandotherthings/pseuds/emetoandotherthings
Summary: Prompt:  Someone forgetting to back up an assignment, losing said assignment, and having to spend all night typing it up even though they feel like crap, because even death wouldn't be a good enough excuse for this particular tutor. Bonus points if they fall asleep at their desk and their friend finishes up for them even though they don't really know anything about the subject in question.Warning: Includes Vomiting
Relationships: Eden/Jude
Kudos: 23





	Assignment Ills

“Oh no!” The muffled cry rang through the flat; Jude had been stirring a spoonful of sugar into a mug of tea to take through to Eden. For the past three days Eden had been confined almost entirely to his bed as a mild cold had descended rapidly into a full blown fever causing him to shiver uncontrollably even when bundled under his duvet and a pile of blankets. He’d been barely coherent as every time he tried to speak he’d ended up in a coughing fit, or sneezing and spluttering. Jude had been extra concerned as the last time Eden had gotten ill like this it had actually been a chest infection which turned into pneumonia, but Eden had promised on numerous occasions that if he felt that awful he would say. Eden had slept for nearly two days straight, feeling utterly exhausted and like his bones were being weighed down with lead, but he’d been forced out of his bed earlier this afternoon with the knowledge that he had an assignment due tomorrow morning that he still hadn’t finished writing or typing up. 

Jude had gone to his lectures, then returned to find Eden wrapped in his blanket while sitting at his desk, frantically working despite his cold-addled brain, surrounded by used tissues and empty water glasses. Eden wouldn’t listen when Jude suggested he ask for an extension, but through wracking coughs he’d explained that this module tutor would accept no less than coma, or death, as a reasonable excuse for not turning in an assignment. He probably would have got an extension when he had pneumonia but not this time. He _had_ to get it done. 

Jude checked on him every so often, bringing him sweet cups of tea to try and keep his blood sugar up because he was struggling to eat; ensuring he was dosed up with the maximum amount of drugs that he was allowed; and just generally geeing him up to keep working. 

At about half seven he heard an extra loud coughing fit and Jude had walked into Eden’s room to find him gripping his rubbish bin as he coughed so hard that they turned into retches which brought up a small amount of liquid that splashed into the bin which was almost full of tissues. Ever since he’d been keeping an extra close eye.

“What? Eden, are you okay?” Jude shouted back, heading quickly to Eden’s room, still carrying the mug of tea he’d prepared for him. He pushed open the door and found Eden with his head in his hands at his desk, sniffing loudly. “What’s going on?” He came up behind Eden’s desk and placed the tea next to where Eden’s elbow was rested; it was only then that Jude saw the tears dripping onto the notebook he’d been typing up notes from. “Eden?!” Jude put his hands firmly onto Eden’s shoulders and spun the chair around so he could see him properly.

Eden looked wretched. His face paler than normal, but the red flush of fever bright across his cheeks, his nose bright red with the irritated skin beginning to crack and bleed from blowing and rubbing it so much. Tears were leaking from Eden’s eyes, dribbling down his cheeks and dripping off his chin.

“I – _ccuuhh_ – can’t get it to turn back on,” Eden was hitting the keyboard of his laptop with one hand and using his other hand to wipe the tears from his face. “It’s got my assignment on it…” He let out a sob which began a coughing fit that made his entire body jerk at the effort. 

“Calm down, let me have a look at it,” Jude said, nudging Eden’s shoulder as he stood next to him at the desk; Eden was still coughing harshly as Jude’s fingertips rattled across the keys, even though the screen was entirely blank. He started trying to revive it, then suddenly Eden went quite quiet next to him and Jude looked across at him; his shoulders were still jerking as though he was still coughing but trying to do so with his mouth closed. “Eden?” 

“I don’t feel so good…” Eden choked, his voice muffled as he covered his hand with his mouth as he started to cough again. 

“Like how?” Jude asked, listening for any kind of wheeze that might indicate this was more than a cold. Then to Jude’s horror a particularly jarring cough precipitated a sudden rush of liquid poured through his fingers and dripped onto his lap. 

“Oh Eden,” Jude grabbed some of the tissues from the box on his desk, and used them to mop the puke that was clinging to Eden’s hands – but another cough turned into a heave and another mouthful of vomit spilled past his lips and dribbled down his chin and into his hand. “Oh dear…” Jude wiped Eden’s chin as he took a few shuddering breaths in, tears were coming out of the corners of Eden’s eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he forced out shakily.

“It’s okay,” Jude could feel his heart beating hard in his chest; Eden looked awful – his blonde hair unkempt and stuck to his face. “I’m going to try and sort out your computer while you go and have a shower to clean yourself up a bit.” 

“Okay,” Eden agreed timidly, and Jude was surprised on how quickly Eden had agreed to this, but knew that must mean he was feeling totally lousy.

“Do you need a hand?” Jude asked as Eden stood up unsteadily from his chair but he shook his head.

“I can manage.” It was almost painful for Jude to watch Eden as he picked up a towel and found some clean clothing to put on after his shower before shuffling from the room. When Jude heard the water of the shower running, he turned his attention to the computer, he managed to bring the screen back up – with an error message heralding: _‘An unexpected I/O error has occurred.’_ He forced it to restart, and it brought up a system recovery screen – the only thing he could do was allow it to run its course and hope it would work. He wished there was something he could do to help Eden, as he looked down at Eden’s rather complicated experiment notes – all of which meant nothing to Jude. 

A wash of relief flooded over Jude as the screen of Eden’s computer flickered back on with his desktop picture of him, Eden, Leyton, Eppie and Alba on their last weekend away. The water of the shower stopped running as Jude searched through the folder labelled ‘Uni work’ for a document that might be the assignment due for tomorrow, but his heart sank as he couldn’t find anything that looked like it was the right thing. He frantically looked through the other folders on Eden’s computer but couldn’t find _anything_ that might have been the assignment. Jude heard the door open behind him, and Eden re-entered with his hair plastered to his face. 

“You’ve got it working?” Eden said with as much enthusiasm as his congested voice would allow him to.

“Uuuh yeah,” Jude turned to look at Eden and his throat suddenly went very tight at the prospect of having to tell him he couldn’t find his work. “Where did you save your assignment to?”

“In my uni folder,” he replied as he placed the dirty clothes he had been wearing into the washing basket and then he caught sight of Jude’s face. “What?”

“I – uh – can’t find it anywhere…” Jude admitted.

“What?!” Eden sounded panicked and he almost grabbed the laptop out of Jude’s hands, frantically checking through all of the folders on his computer; then he sagged, suddenly looking like he might be about to cry again. “Oh no, this can’t be happening… It’s gone!” His hand went up to his forehead; he looked even more exhausted than he had before. “I’m gonna die…”

“Right, look – it’s okay, you can do this!” Jude insisted, steeling himself to be Eden’s support system to get this done. “You’ve written most of it out, and you’d typed some of it out – so you can do it again. It’s ten to eleven now, I’m going to make you a new cup of tea and you can have done the introduction by the time I bring it through.” Eden looked at Jude and nodded. 

“Okay,” he still sounded like he might cry, but he’d replaced his laptop back on his desk and flicked back through his notebook to the start of his notes.  
When Jude came back with the cup of tea, Eden had his head bent over his notes and was typing quickly.

“Thank you,” Eden said, coughing slightly as Jude placed the mug onto the desk, but he didn’t even stop typing. 

“I’ll come back and check on you in a bit,” Jude didn’t want to interrupt Eden’s concentration, so he left Eden’s room and went to arrange his own things he needed for his lectures tomorrow. He’d sifted through his notes from that day, turning his own computer on, in preparation to type them up. Every so often he heard Eden cough, but that reassured Jude that Eden was still working. 

At midnight Jude decided to go and check on Eden, who was still working hard and the keys were rattling because he was typing so fast. Jude could hear Eden’s breathing was a bit laboured – he’d have to keep an ear out for that in case it got worse.

“How’re you doing?” Jude asked, surreptitiously trying to see how far he’d got by looking at his word count.

“I’m getting there,” Eden paused to blow his nose, “I’m halfway through the methodology…”

“That’s great!” Jude encouraged, then spotted Eden’s empty mug. “Shall I get you another cup of tea?”

“That would be wonderful!” Eden nodded as Jude picked up the mug. Eden was doing really well in catching up with what he’d lost, and Jude was desperate not to interrupt him, so he took the tea into him and left him to work. Then back in his own room he put on something to watch on his laptop. 

Jude jerked awake as his laptop slipped off his lap onto the bed and snapped shut; he’d clearly dozed off while watching TV and he rubbed his eyes. Then he caught sight of his clock and nearly leapt from the bed; it was 03:24am and he hadn’t checked on Eden for over three hours. He was praying, as he tiptoed across the hallway, that Eden was finished and would be in bed, asleep; but as he cautiously pushed the door open he could see Eden was still sat at his desk.

“Eden?” There was no sound of typing and Eden’s computer screen was black, Jude approached Eden from behind and realised that his head was resting on his arm on top of his desk. He was fast asleep. His cheeks were still dusted pink, his nostrils rimmed with dried blood and the presence of bloody tissues showed he’d had a nosebleed, and his mouth was slightly open so he could breath. 

Jude reached round Eden and touched the computer mouse so the screen lit up, Jude’s heart dropped when he was the cursor blinking halfway through a sentence – Eden hadn’t finished his assignment. 

There honestly couldn’t be much more for him to do, but Jude couldn’t bring himself to wake Eden up and make him finish. He read through what Eden had started as a conclusion, then decided he could totally do this – he could bullshit the last couple of sentences and then get it printed off so all Eden had to do was go and hand it in in the morning. 

Carefully he extracted the laptop and sat on the edge of the bed to read through the entire report that Eden had written, so he could finish it. This was all totally foreign to him, and he just hoped it would be acceptable as a conclusion.   
At quarter to four Jude had completed, formatted and sent Eden’s report to print, then he pulled Eden up away from the desk and he didn’t wake up. Trying extremely hard to support him, Jude helped him out of the chair and barely made it over to the bed before he allowed Eden to flop onto it. Pulling the duvet over Eden he sorted out the report so it was ready to be handed in. Once he had set the finalised report onto Eden’s desk, he quietly left the room, set an alarm to wake him up in only three hours and crawled into his own bed.

When his alarm went off he was exhausted, but forced himself out of bed and got dressed slowly. He made a cup of coffee that he desperately needed, and a mug of tea to give to Eden. Eden was completely unconscious as he lay spread across the bed, but Jude placed the mug down on the desk, then shook Eden’s shoulders gently:

“Eden?” Jude said, Eden took a sudden inhale and his eyes snapped open. “You need to go and hand in your assignment.”

“Oh fuck! I’ve not finished – I must have fallen asleep!” Eden had shot upright and out of bed so quickly that Jude was a bit alarmed.

“Hey, wait – Eden, stop!” Jude called as Eden had scrambled to his desk, then stopped as he found the finished report, picking it up and leafing through it. He looked up at Jude, who took a deep breath. “I found you at about half three, you were fast asleep and I couldn’t bear to wake you up when you looked so ill… so I finished your conclusion for you…” He bit his lip as Eden flicked to the back of the report and read through what Jude had done, and hoped that Eden wasn’t about to explode. 

“You… you did that for me?” Eden’s voice had dropped to a whisper.

“Well… yeah,” Jude agreed, “I just wanted to help.” Eden looked from the report in his hands to Jude, then placed it down onto the desk and flung his arms around Jude’s neck. 

“I can’t believe how good you are to me,” Eden whispered, holding Jude tightly in a hug. 

“It’s nothing Eden,” Jude replied, hugging him back. “Now you just need to go hand it in, then come home and get better.”

“Thank you.” Eden was still hugging him and Jude heard him sniff. 

“It’s okay Eden,” Jude assured, as Eden pulled away from the hug and looked directly at him. Then very unexpectedly Eden bent down and kissed Jude on the lips. Jude felt like his heart had paused in his chest as he felt Eden’s warm lips against his, then Eden broke away.

“Oh – I – sorry,” Eden suddenly went bright red and looked embarrassed, but Jude stared up at him – his heart had restarted and was pounding furiously inside him. “I-” Jude cut him off by reaching up to the back of his head, the short bristles of Eden’s hair tickling Jude’s palm, and pulled him back so he could kiss him again and his tongue brushed against Eden’s lips. He’d waited for this for a long time. But then Eden pulled away again: “Jude, I’m – I don’t want to make you ill.”

“I don’t care,” Jude shook his head.

“But I do…” Eden insisted, still half wondering whether this was all a hallucination of his fevered mind. 

“Okay,” Jude said, then took a deep breath. “You need to hand in your assignment, then rest up.” 

“Yeah…” Eden nodded.

“Good,” Jude took a step backwards, “I – uh – better go to my lecture, but we’ll talk later?

“Yeah?” Eden agreed, nodding his head. “Definitely.” 


End file.
